


Equals

by deskclutter



Category: Bleach
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Snark, stupidity and ridiculousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:36:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter





	Equals

  
**Equals**

"Get lost," the red-headed streetrat grumps.

The tiny brunette kicks him in the head and makes a break for it.

  
So they've gotta go get Rukia back.

Taichou thinks it's going to be so easy. Sometimes Renji thinks that bitch of a midget isn't worth the effort he's put in for the past fifty fucking years. See how easy Taichou finds it.

  
If there's something that Renji hates the most, it's when that cold fish of a Kuchiki is right.

  
She entered the ranks under Ukitake Juushirou of the Thirteenth Division. He entered under Zaraki Kenpachi of the Eleventh.

There's just one division between them but the gulf's still widening.

  
He left, Rukia's mind told her. He told me good luck and he left.

Well. Well.

Inuzuri Rukia was gone. He's not supposed to mix with Kuchiki Rukia, sister to nobles.

She touches cold fingers to a numb face, eyes wide with shock and she can feel the loss of him running through her all to her toes.

_Well_. Her eyes snap into a furious narrowing. She will just have to show him, won't she.

She had wished, just now, that he would have stayed. Foolish.

  
She fell in love with Shiba-fukutaichou. Why the hell not? He was of her rank, wasn't he? She _deserved_ to fall in love with someone like him.

"Those spikes," the fifth seat of his division said. "The ones he calls his _hair_. They are so _ugly_. And the shape of his face is not beautiful _at all_."

"Hey now," said the third seat. "Not the best way to. _Foster_, let's say. Good relations between divisions so let's go get drunk instead, eh ow Yumichika nails _do not go there_."

"In fact," continued the fifth seat, sitting pretty, feathers unruffled. "I would say they're uglier than even your tattoos, and _that_ is saying something. And," he added. "I was _speaking_, Ikkaku. Don't interrupt."

"Oi," said Renji, vaguely indignant amidst the mild scuffle that broke out (only three pieces of furniture were broken), but he appreciated it.

Renji got drunk.

  
Once they stole apples.

She gobbled down her share. For a tiny brat, she ate fast, Renji thought. Juice ran down her fingers to trace the length of her arm. She looked so stupid, trying to lick her elbow.

He threw one of hie apples at her. "You need to grow, midget," he said, and shielded his head, so she kicked him in the stomach.

  
They are equals, Renji thinks, striding down the corridors to her cell. They are equals and he's not her gang leader anymore, she's not one of his gang anymore, and he's not going to break her out and run, because she's made her choices and he can respect her enough to let her live the consequences of them.

But damn if he doesn't despise it. Old habits die hard.

  
It only took him fifty years to realise he never _needed_ to fight Kuchiki Byakuya for her. He needed to fight Kuchiki Byakuya for himself, and that just made the whole thing pointless, didn't it.

"Better," his captain said.

Maybe not.

This one was for his old gang who died in Rukon and the shinigami of the Eleventh Division.

Most of all, it was a metaphorical 'up yours' to the nobles who had ever snubbed them from Rukongai to the Academy from a pair of alley brats.

  
She had watched a sport on the box with the moving pictures that Ichigo had called a 'television'.

She had watched the ugly men with the hulking shoulders and undersized heads fighting over a small ball and tossing it around. They caught it under their arms and ran with it for no apparent reason.

Only a rubbish sport with no relation to feet would be named 'football'.

Later she would beat both Renji and Ichigo for making her into a ball, but first she would secretly relish the feeling of being safe under Renji's arm.

He would get beaten _twice_ as hard.

  
It was obvious she would be going with him to the mortal world but he asked her anyway because.

Because.

"I had thought," she told him. "That a resourceful and daring vice-captain such as yourself would have found the answer evident."

"Bitch," he said. "I ws being _considerate_\--"

"Fool," she said, and when he caught the foot that was aimed for his head to throw into the wall, she rebounded off it and punched at his tattoos.

  
"Ichigo is an idiot," she says.

"You only just realise that now?" He looks at her as though she is batshit insane, which he has told her she is several times, but that statement has been _negated_ by his subsequent surrender to her swift and valiant attacks. Multiple times.

"I was repeating it for your edification," she says. "Seeing as how you and he. Are of similar ilk. Unlike you, however," she continues, ignoring his "Fuck, no!" by slapping a fist into his stomach. "He does not have the benefit of constant beatings."

"Benefit, she says," Renji grumbles. "_Benefit_."

"Quiet, Renji," she says. "Inoue-san is too gentle to deliver such necessary measures to him. _We_ must, evidently, make up for the lack of guidance in his life."

He glances at her warily. "Make up how?"

"My plan is deceptively simple to carry out: You shall hold him down and I shall beat him."

"I can get behind that," Renji says, a smirk beginning to stretch his lips.

"The beatings," Rukia says. "Shall continue until morale improves."

"That too," Renji agrees.

  
Rukia has been adopted three times.

Her first adopted family had left far too quickly for her liking.

Her second adopted family had been too harsh for her liking, and she cannot profess adoration for her treatment, though she will not protest it for she is still fond of her elder brother.

Her third adopted family is insane and Ichigo is horrified at how quickly she fits in.

The eldest son of her third adopted family assisted her in regaining the last remaining member of the first, and for that it is just right.

  
Leave? But--!

Rukia. Come on.

Inoue-san--

Stop. You don't want to get in trouble here and now. Let's go. You'll shame your brother if you try to fight him here.

  
Rukia was waiting for him. "Cloaks from Nii-sama," she said, passing him the much larger one.

"This doesn't creep the hell out of you?" he asked.

"A Kuchiki," she said primly. "Does not find things 'creepy'."

  
Let us take a moment to examine the scene. There are five tunnels leading in different directions. A man and his four companions stand. He says, "The smartest choice is obviously to stick together here!!"

The heavily tattooed man with a minute glow emanating from his palm steps before him. "Worrying about a warrior's life on the battlefield," he says. "Is only an insult."

"No doubt this is because you're worried about me. That really isn't like you, Ichigo. Just as I said before, "Don't waste your care on me,"" says the shinigami behind the tattooed man. "I didn't come here just to be protected by you!"

  
We're equals, Renji thinks. But sometimes it's okay to lean.  



End file.
